The Last Fire
by Butterfly Conlon
Summary: It is that photograph taken over fifty years ago at Tibby’s Diner with all of my friends. It is odd to think that I am the only one left out of all of them. I can only wonder which ring they happen to reside in now.


Disclaimer: Everything in this fiction dealing with Newsies belongs to Disney...and that is everything. There. I gave you props. You can't sue.  
  
Note from Author: Is it short? Yes. Is it colloquial? Yes. (The prologue, mind you. I do not think our particular newsboy had a knack for the more eloquent speech patterns.) There is a real photograph I am basing this on, namely the one that is run in the papers after they finish King of New York. This will be short, dark, and portraying our dear newsies in a light where one knows they will be destined to Hell (hence, part of the fire theme.) They are vignettes, and hopefully this will be wrapped up soon. As always, please read, review, and enjoy--  
  
Note from Author:  
  
THE LAST FIRE  
  
PROLOGUE: TALES OF A PHOTOGRAPH  
  
Despite the fire that is crackling like something else in the hearth, the room is still cold. Gert has already gone to bed, so it's just me down here in living room, occupying the mahogany rocking chair that I have seem to have in my possession forever. It's a nice chair, though the wood is quite polished down from the number of times I have occupied it, especially during the intervals at night I sit in it after Gert is already sleeping away, submersed somewhere in Dreamland.  
  
The room is dark and cold, and the only noises are the impatient fire twitching and spitting in the fireplace and me rocking back and forth to no apparent beat in my rocking chair. The shades of shadows play across the walls and ceiling, looking like some kind of ethereal Bogeymen ready to jump right out from the wall and manifest themselves into their true forms. Shadows always scared me. I wouldn't be able to explain it to you but they always had something sinister and sad about them.  
  
Much like memories.  
  
The radio forecast predicted that we would receive a few more inches of snow to the drifts that are already unanimous with the dead of December. Outside the frost stained windowpane, it is already beginning to come down.  
  
Upstairs, I can hear Gert begin to snore. For an old dame, she sure could huff-and-puff and blow your house down. The fire has reached its maturity, and I can see the dying blaze licking hungrily for more coal. That means that I have to get up. In my younger days, the act of getting up would be more akin to, say, having your way with one of the factory girls on the roof of the lodging house it was so second nature. Now it's like driving an ice pick through my body every time I am in motion. The doctor said that I have rheumatoid arthritis in my old joints. It almost makes me chuckle to think what I would have told one of the lusty, sweating, panting girls just waiting to get me up on the roof when I was seventeen that I had to decline because I had arthritis.  
  
Back then I had dreams. Now I have arthritis. I stand, and though the thought is quite funny, the pain is not. With the help of my old chair, I slowly push my aching, stiff joints until my back is straight as an arrow—or perhaps an arrow that has been damaged somewhat to great extent in battle. I cross the parlor, the ancient floorboards wailing out their tune of great agony. Gert keeps the bag of coal stuffed behind the door to the kitchen. I grab the light satchel that was purchased from the Ma and Pa store in town—their names I forget but I know they are nice folks—and head back to the hearth to feed the ravenous sparks that are fidgeting with impatience for they know they are dying. Gert always keeps telling me to scoop up the coal with my hands and not lift the whole sack, but why take the high road when you can take the low road?  
  
As I lift up the sack I notice something lying on the ground that had been underneath the satchel. Caked with a thick varnish of dust, to any other naked eye it would resemble something that could have once been a photograph of some long forgotten relatives of yore. Yet I know what the rectangular shard of paper is in a moment. I know because my heart, which is already ailing me, feels as though it has skipped a few beats and my chest has tightened like something else.  
  
It is that photograph taken over fifty years ago at Tibby's Diner with all of my friends. I need not even pick up the picture, because if I close my eyes I still can see it in the blackness, bright and vivid as ever. Spot Conlon. Racetrack Higgins. David Jacobs. Les Jacobs. Skittery LeChance. Bumlets McQueen. Mush Millers. Myself. Insane thoughts of revolution and revolt. Wild ideas of freedom and strikes. My God, everything that was running rampant through our minds and whatever had contaminated the air that we breathed so that all about us inhaled and became infected, it was all right there, captured for a fleeting moment in that photograph. Brian Denton had been the magician, and had conjured it all for that one moment in time forever to be immortalized in the Sun edition of June 14, 1899.  
  
I realize that I have stopped breathing and it all comes out in one big whoosh, sending the dust particles scattering and making the details of the photograph all the more vivid. I absentmindedly drop the bag of coal next to me so that the pieces tumble out, and slowly bent down to retrieve the photo. The pain is not noticeable at the moment for I have been seduced and hypnotized by the black-and-white picture. I stand, holding it, and gently brush off the dust. Spot Race Davey Les Skittery Bumlets Mush. Consumed by the photograph, I make my way across the parlor once again, oblivious to the wailing of the floorboards and oblivious to the fact that I am sitting in my rocking chair. I begin rocking back and forth to no apparent beat.  
  
I glance up from the picture momentarily to see that the blaze in the hearth has roared to life again. Not thinking of the curiosity about it, instead old wives' tale from my childhood pops into my head. It went that you should never stand to close to a fire in a fireplace because all fires are connected to Hell and the Devil might pull you in. I know now that it was just a warning laced over to tell young children that they might burn themselves if they play near fires. But I never have forgotten that saying and I wonder now if any of them are down there and if I were to get too close to the fire perhaps I would conjure their spirits.  
  
All of what they committed is somewhat blurry to me, for you see I am nearly past my time on this earth and some endeavors are not as bright as others. Though I do remember one in particular. I remember getting the word some fifty years ago that he had just been incarcerated and already faced death. And I had been so vigilant to defend his name until I had found out what his crime was, what he had did, did to her—  
  
The room is dark and cold, and the only noises are the impatient fire twitching and spitting in the fireplace and me rocking back and forth to no apparent beat in my rocking chair. I look at the photograph and wonder if they are all smiling and grinning so blissfully where they are now—  
  
It is odd to think that I am the only one left out of all of them. The only one who truly got to live life as it was meant to be, though it has not been without its overwhelming bouts of pain, I can assure you that. I can only wonder which ring they happen to reside in now.  
  
The only sounds I can hear are Gert snores and the aimless beat I am creating with the rocking chair. The only company I have now is the darkness, the photograph, and my memories. Oh, the last one is not something of a material nature, but when they come, in all their blackness, they shred my heart and soul apart and I can almost imagine what it's like to be with them, to be in Hell-- 


End file.
